Wow ... are you just playing dumb? If you truly believe science is just another religion I would respectfully suggest you have no idea what science is.

This thread has turned into a classic rattling of empty heads, but this one really cracks me up. Jeremy, 500 years ago a Roman priest would have put it this way: "If you truly believe Catholicism is just another religion I would respectfully suggest you have no idea what truth is." (He might not have used the word "respectfully.")

Let's face it. To a real scientist,science isn't a religion, and that kind of scientist has a very precise picture of science's shortcomings and of the things science not only can't answer, but that science can't even approach. But the great unwashed masses have been taught that science is capable of what religion used to be thought capable of. To those masses science most certainly has become not only a religion but the religion.

This thread has turned into a classic rattling of empty heads, but this one really cracks me up. Jeremy, 500 years ago a Roman priest would have put it this way: "If you truly believe Catholicism is just another religion I would respectfully suggest you have no idea what truth is." (He might not have used the word "respectfully.")

Let's face it. To a real scientist,science isn't a religion, and that kind of scientist has a very precise picture of science's shortcomings and of the things science not only can't answer, but that science can't even approach. But the great unwashed masses have been taught that science is capable of what religion used to be thought capable of. To those masses science most certainly has become not only a religion but the religion.

The great historical duality of politics and religion has now been joined by science in scrabbling for power and influence (and accumulation of money) over the population. I guess that politics was thinking that it might be a great ally in the fight against religion but it has grown up to take a position of its own. Not an original thought I'm sure but still an interesting one.

The original photo was pretty funny, and I can GUARANTEE that you won't see that halo with the Sigma DP2M (currently on page 24). This thread is becoming obsolete, but a thread on Truly Awful Photoshop Examples might be amusing.

The difference between science & religion is essentially this; religion seeks evidence to confirm beliefs held, whereas science looks at the evidence & derives beliefs about the world from those.

In religion, those who question are heretics. In science, those who question are, er, scientists.

Religion is concerned with the truth as revealed to a select few. Science is concerned with the truth as revealed to everyone who bothers to look.

But science is unable to explain some things. I choose to believe in God because if I am wrong, I have not lost anything of value. Now, those that do not believe in God are in a different situation. It could really matter if they are wrong. This is my personal choice that I have made and I respect the next person for not believing. To each his own. I see no need in arguing about it or trying to "convert" anyone.

The difference between science & religion is essentially this; religion seeks evidence to confirm beliefs held, whereas science looks at the evidence & derives beliefs about the world from those.

In religion, those who question are heretics. In science, those who question are, er, scientists.

Religion is concerned with the truth as revealed to a select few. Science is concerned with the truth as revealed to everyone who bothers to look.

A very broad statement made from a very narrow viewpoint. Faith and science are not mutually exclusive and the seeking of explanations that science cannot yet provide should not be so casually dismissed. In fact I rather feel sorry for those who have gone through life without experiencing small episodes of 'connection' or pre knowledge or the 101 other manifestations of phenomenon to which science has yet to give an explanation, which is not to say it never will, but it first has to look beyond it's present dogma. This is not an easy option I know because it has dug itself something of a hole insisting on the immediate visibility (or measurable evidence) of whatever is to be studied and to be quite honest I don't know if I want it to explain everything for mankind will only devise ways of using it against itself just as both science and codified religion has done. On the other side of the coin science gave us the moonshots and anaesthetics just as religion gave us many photogenic relics such as the Pyramids and cathedrals as well as inspired and financed great art.

Right, I'm off to see if I can get a game of dice with God, yer coming?

But science is unable to explain some things. I choose to believe in God because if I am wrong, I have not lost anything of value. Now, those that do not believe in God are in a different situation. It could really matter if they are wrong. This is my personal choice that I have made and I respect the next person for not believing. To each his own. I see no need in arguing about it or trying to "convert" anyone.

This is not a reliable argument. When a person believes in God, it is a God imagined and expressed through the human imagination.

When a person disbelieves in God, it is a disbelief also imagined and expressed through the human imagination, but with greater courage because belief is easy and just requires a conformity to tradition, whereas disbelief requires genuine intellectual activity and questioning of a sort that leads to truth, or at least the scientific framework our society is now based upon.

There was a time, just a few hundred years ago, when science did not exist, and I imagine that life must have been truly awful when those in control were sorcerers, witches, magicians and popes.

I'm so grateful I live in an enlightened era, but so saddened that so many people in this enlightened era are still stuck in the mire of religious bigotry.

Of course there are still many things that science is unable to explain. It's because the standards of scientific explanation are so much higher than the standards of religious explanation.

But science is unable to explain some things. I choose to believe in God because if I am wrong, I have not lost anything of value. Now, those that do not believe in God are in a different situation. It could really matter if they are wrong. This is my personal choice that I have made and I respect the next person for not believing. To each his own. I see no need in arguing about it or trying to "convert" anyone.

Of course there are things science can't explain - yet. If science could explain everything, it would stop. Scientists admit that they don't know things, but unlike some, don't make shit up to fill in the gaps. 'Science doesn't know everything, therefore God' is not a rational, logical argument.

As for your belief in God - as a matter of fact, if you're wrong, you might have lost something. What if you've chosen the wrong god? What if God is testing people, such that those who believe in him based on certain religious texts for instance, don't get into heaven, but those who reject him based on rationality, do? What you're offering is in essence, Pascal's Wager. It's a false dichotomy.

And yes, to each his/her own. I see no point in trying to convert people. Except that I regularly get believers trying to convert me, or arguing that I can't be good without their particular god, or specific version of religion. They keep trying to influence social policy, educational policy, and so on. If only it really was just a private matter.

And yes, to each his/her own. I see no point in trying to convert people. Except that I regularly get believers trying to convert me, or arguing that I can't be good without their particular god, or specific version of religion. They keep trying to influence social policy, educational policy, and so on. If only it really was just a private matter.

You're so right. They belong to the Establishment religion of 'Scientism', which has perverted Science into a series of pc dogmata to which one must do obeisance for preferment. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus on the other hand have never pressured me.

This is not a reliable argument. When a person believes in God, it is a God imagined and expressed through the human imagination.

When a person disbelieves in God, it is a disbelief also imagined and expressed through the human imagination, but with greater courage because belief is easy and just requires a conformity to tradition, whereas disbelief requires genuine intellectual activity and questioning of a sort that leads to truth, or at least the scientific framework our society is now based upon.

There was a time, just a few hundred years ago, when science did not exist, and I imagine that life must have been truly awful when those in control were sorcerers, witches, magicians and popes.

I'm so grateful I live in an enlightened era, but so saddened that so many people in this enlightened era are still stuck in the mire of religious bigotry.

Of course there are still many things that science is unable to explain. It's because the standards of scientific explanation are so much higher than the standards of religious explanation.

I hope no-one takes offense. I'm simply expressing an honest opinion.

Bigotry can work both ways Ray and the recent flare up against the the Catholic church (I am not their greatest fan BTW) in Ireland and how it's teachings caused the death of a women is a case in point.

I'm not sure if the story made the impact in the US that it did over here but basically a women (dentist by training) died due to a complication during pregnancy. The distraught father took to the airwaves blaming the Irish doctors and their 'faith', the Irish law and it's vagueness (which may have some validity) and the Irish people for not yet having turned the Pope out of Ireland in the 21st century. His assumption was that his wife had been denied a life saving abortion because abortion wasn't allowed in Ireland. Well, yes it is in cases like this but that fact is dismissed by the Paddy bashers and 'rationalists' who insist it is all the fault of the church. Further investigation suggests that in certain cases an abortion may not be best medical practice anyway and the hospital concerned has kept a most dignified silence on the whole episode. Throw into the mix that Ireland has one of the worlds lowest maternal death rates and that the unfortunate women's family have yet to make a formal complaint of manslaughter to the police as they have been threatening to do and all of a sudden the bigotry of the rationalists looks just as vindictive and ugly as any that we have seen from the church over here in recent years. It's almost enough to make me to take up holy orders!

This is not a reliable argument. When a person believes in God, it is a God imagined and expressed through the human imagination.

When a person disbelieves in God, it is a disbelief also imagined and expressed through the human imagination, but with greater courage because belief is easy and just requires a conformity to tradition, whereas disbelief requires genuine intellectual activity and questioning of a sort that leads to truth, or at least the scientific framework our society is now based upon.

There was a time, just a few hundred years ago, when science did not exist, and I imagine that life must have been truly awful when those in control were sorcerers, witches, magicians and popes.

I'm so grateful I live in an enlightened era, but so saddened that so many people in this enlightened era are still stuck in the mire of religious bigotry.

Of course there are still many things that science is unable to explain. It's because the standards of scientific explanation are so much higher than the standards of religious explanation.

I hope no-one takes offense. I'm simply expressing an honest opinion.

No offense taken. One of the things that science can not explain is how something can be created without a creator. I think that it takes a whole lot more faith to believe that everything (Humans, plants, animals etc) just "happened". This way of thinking would lead one to believe that you could take a watch, disassemble it, put it in your pocket, and at some point (maybe in a million years) the watch would just happen to not only be reassembled, but be running and have the exact time. That takes an awful lot of faith.

......... and all of a sudden the bigotry of the rationalists looks just as vindictive and ugly as any that we have seen from the church over here in recent years. It's almost enough to make me to take up holy orders!

Sorry! Your term 'Bigotry of the Rationalists' destroys your argument. It's an oxymoron. Rationalism by its nature is against bigotry. What more can I say!